I’m sure you’ve heard that in the West we consider our taste buds to recognise four basic tastes: Sweet, Salt, Sour, Bitter. All flavours are made up of a combination of these basic tastes. In Japan, they believe a fifth basic taste to exist. It is called Umami. It’s meant to represent a kind of aged, fermented taste – so anything with soy sauce has a hint of umami taste. That’s why, with all that lovely soy sauce and honey, this tofu recipe has a sweet umami twist!

Recipe ingredients

How to make this tofu recipe

This tofu recipe is good for any type of pasta. I’m going to leave the pasta to you. Pasta + hot water + time in microwave/on stove = perfect. To prepare the tofu I usually begin three hours before I cook, but really it depends how much flavour you want and when is convenient for you. I have had that tofu marinading in soy sauce and honey for a whole day and it turned out fine. Delicious, in fact.

Get out a container, something with grooves at the bottom is best but anything will work. Cut up your tofu (I like to cut it in quite small chunks to get it as marinaded in sauce as possible) and put it in the container. Pour a quarter of a cup of soy sauce in and half a cup of water followed by two tablespoons of honey. If this doesn’t cover your tofu I suggest you add more juice or turn the marinading tofu over after a few hours to make sure all of it has had contact with that sauce. Place your marinading tofu in the fridge and go to work, school, a medieval fair, whatever.

When you feel like eating, bring out your tofu and transfer it to a small non-stick frying pan at medium heat. Pour a very little bit of the marinate into the pan as well. Wait about five minutes after the marinate has evaporated and flip the tofu. When the tofu doesn’t sizzle if you press down on it, that means most of the water has gone and it’s cooked.

Put your pasta and tofu together on a plate and enjoy. If it’s not flavoursome enough, just drizzle a little bit of soy sauce on top. And honey, if you like. Probably just soy sauce though.

So what are you waiting for? Get in the kitchen and make yourself a healthy meal!